TAMPA — The Tampa Bay Lightning may be beatable, but they are no pushovers.

They proved that Monday night when faced with a near must-win situation in Game 2 against Boston. From the drop of the puck, the Lightning took it to the Bruins and forced some of Boston’s best players to make game-altering mistakes in a 4-2 Tampa win that evened the series headed back to Boston.

And maybe, just maybe, the Lightning shutdown line of Brayden Point, Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson can hang with the Patrice Bergeron line. For two days, Point had to live with his minus-5 outing in Game 1. But while the Bergeron line was on the ice for both Boston goals, its was also on the ice for three against, including Palat’s game-winner and the empty-netter that sealed it.

Asked if they thought they had less time and space than Game 1, both Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak saved themselves.

“They had a good game, I think it’s more on us,” said Pastrnak. “It’s unacceptable for me. A tough game. But that’s the good thing about the playoffs. I’m going to be better Wednesday.”

It was a rough night for Pastrnak, some of it his doing, some not. On a 5 on 3 power play in the first period it appeared he beat Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, but the puck clanged of the near post then dinged the far post before bouncing wide. And in the second period, he was whistled for a double minor for high-sticking on Victor Hedman, but the replay clearly showed Pastrnak had lifted Hedman’s stick, which came up and cut the Tampa defenseman.

But midway through the second, Pastrnak helped to put the Bruins on the chase for good when his drop pass high in the offensive zone was picked off by Point and taken the other way for Johnson’s goal to break a tie.

The score remained 2-1 until late in the third period when Marchand tried to play a puck back to Pastrnak just inside the blue line. It was off the mark and went to Point, who wheeled with it and fed Palat for what looked like an insurance goal, but turned out to be the game-winner, with 5:52 left.

“We didn’t play great, especially early. You turn pucks over to a good team and they’re going to capitalize at some point. So we have to respect the game a little better,” said Marchand.

The Lightning were desperate and it showed. They outhit the Bruins by a wide margin, 42-24. That stat can be wildly misleading at times, often proving that the team with the big hit advantage simply was chasing the puck all night. That was not the case for the Lightning, who consistently won battles with either their speed or their physicality.

“They were the more physical team, for sure,” said Torey Krug. “They came out and played. Give them credit. (Tuukka Rask) did all he could to help us out. He made some timely saves. We kept trying to claw out way back in it. We just couldn’t get over the top.”

But as badly as they were outplayed at times, the Bruins did make Tampa sweat for its victory when Krug scored on a seeing-eye shot with 4:02 left. Boston did not deserve to win, but had a chance.

When Marchand was going in on breakaway after Krug’s goal late in the game, Anton Stralman got away with a good whack on Marchand’s hands.

“It is what it is. You can’t change it at this point. You try and figure out what the standard is and if it doesn’t stay consistent, it’s tough to play. You get frustrated quickly,” said Krug. “But it is what is. We’ve got to stop slashing them and if they keep slashing us, you hope you get a call.”

Now the series moves back to Boston for Game 3 on Wednesday. The Bruins may have missed a chance for a commanding 2-0 lead, but no one expected this to be a quick series. Boston is still in control until it drops a game at home.

“It’s 1-1. It’s the playoffs. You’re not going to walk through teams,” said Marchand.

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